BROOKLINE (MA)
Brookline Tab
By Ed Symkus/ SENIOR Staff Writer
Thursday, January 6, 2005
In a time when headlines about defrocked priests who abused children still get regular play in newspapers - the Paul Shanley trial starts in two weeks - a new film by Mary Healey Conlon titled "Holy Water-Gate: Abuse Cover-Up in the Catholic Church" is shedding even more light on the subject.
The film, which will be screened at the Coolidge Corner Theatre on Jan. 10, looks inside the long-hidden situation and offers reasons for its causes while explaining some of its numbing effects. Conlon got interviews with men and women at the center of the crisis, including victims, rights advocates, journalists and, in one shocking case, a perpetrator who speaks openly about his and other priests' behavior.
The film was coproduced by Brookline resident Louise Rosen, an agent for independent producers who heads up Louise Rosen Ltd. While Rosen worked regularly as a distributor, selling films and television programs once they were completed, in recent years she decided to get involved in projects at an earlier stage.
"I started pre-selling the rights that I would have sold at the end of the line," she explains. "So it's more of a concept sell, rather than the finished product, and that gives me an opportunity to have more of a role. I can comment on budget, the treatment, research. I can play more of a producerly role than just a sales role."
Rosen's involvement with "Holy Water-Gate" began when Conlon, based in Rhode Island, approached her about 2 1/2 years ago, looking for someone to help her raise financing and to get some input on the project's potential.